Debby Yoder, Contributor

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Atlanta's Warped Civil Right Legacy: The Sad Story of Paschal's Restaurant

Posted by Debby and Hubert
Yoder, ATLANTA GA -- The historic Paschal’s Restaurant and Motor Hotel, where
much of the civil rights movement was launched, stands in ruins. Across the
street shines a brand new Wal-Mart. Parts of the neighborhood are undergoing renovation with new condos and strip malls, while Paschal's sits abandoned and decaying. The irony is so blatant that the Washington Post did an article about the condition of this civil rights legacy last summer.

Paschal’s Restaurant was
opened by two brothers in 1947. They grew up in the post-slavery period of
sharecropping in Thomson, GA, picking cotton from dawn to dusk yet barely
scraping by. Their aspirations for a better life led them to Atlanta where they
opened a small chicken shack near Clark College (Now Clark Atlanta University). The popularity of the shack
enabled them to move into a full-service restaurant across the street and later
the siblings added a hotel and lounge. Their business was thriving. The lounge
attracted top-notch jazz musicians and students from the local Historically Black colleges visited the
restaurant daily and introduced the place to visiting family and friends. In
these segregated times, Blacks had few options for upscale dining and
entertainment and Paschal’s delighted in providing the best of both.

When the modern day civil
rights movement began to take shape, Paschal’s was at the forefront. The
student groups met for meals and strategizing and a young Martin Luther King Jr.
approached the brothers about a regular spot for his team to convene. They
embraced the opportunity and set aside a meeting room where the team planned
the 1963 March on Washington and the subsequent marches on Selma, Alabama. The
passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was celebrated at Paschal’s and the Poor
People’s Campaign was organized there in the months before King’s murder. The
movement continued without King and Paschal’s remained the place for crafting
the future. Andrew Young, John Lewis, Jesse Jackson, Rev. Joseph Lowery, and
Maynard Jackson all met regularly to plan demonstrations, political campaigns
and celebrate each step forward. As Blacks gained political power, Paschal’s
became known as “Little City Hall.”

The restaurant itself has relocated
to the gentrifying Castleberry Hill neighborhood, while the original building became the Paschal Center and part of Clark
Atlanta University (CAU). CAU operated the restaurant as a dining hall and the hotel
as a dorm but shut down both due to the costs associated with maintaining the
aging buildings. So now the building sit boarded up and left to rot. The symbolism
has taken its toll on the surrounding neighborhood. Entire streets of homes,
businesses and churches are boarded and unoccupied; many have been damaged by
fire. Homeless and unemployed people wander the streets and squat in the
abandoned buildings. There are reports of rampant drug and alcohol abuse. In
the midst of this, students attend the nearby John F. Kennedy elementary school, which, by
comparison, has been reasonably well maintained, perhaps because of its link to
a white man. The message is subtle, but clear.

Contrast this with the
Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee where the site of King’s murder has become
the National Civil Rights Museum.
The museum opened in 1991 and has welcomed more than three million visitors
since. It provides a tribute to the past as well as educational opportunities
for the future. Started by a small group of preservation-conscious
individuals, it has become part of the National Parks system and continues to
expand. Like theKing Center in Atlanta, also
part of the National Park system, it provides a living, breathing link to a
not-so-distant and very important past.

If the city of Atlanta can
consider sinking money into a new football stadium to draw tourists to the
area, shouldn’t it also invest in restoring Paschal's and its surrounding
neighborhood, which may have even greater tourist potential? Tax revenues are
collected from the hotel and motel industry to fund development, historic
preservation and create additional destination appeal. Paschal's is ready for
such an investment. Coretta Scott King was once quoted as saying, “Paschal’s is as
important a historical site for the American Civil Rights Movement as Boston’s
Faneuil Hall is to the American Revolution.” We need to act before we lose our
history to strip malls and Wal-Marts.

Debby Yoder is a Contributor to Social Shutter as well
as a student at Georgia State University majoring in Sociology. She can be
contacted at debby.yoder@gmail.com. Hubert Yoder is Debby's father and retired
after working in information systems at McDonnell Douglas, EDS, and IBM.
Photography is now his work and hobby. He can be contacted at hyoder@gmail.com.

3 comments:

Wow, I have been thinking all the same things. So sad and really poingnant today as I noticed the death of Mark Mulkey. I was wondering if he ever contemplated doing anything with this before his death. So now what???

I was struck by your words here: "There are reports of rampant drug and alcohol abuse. In the midst of this, students attend the nearby John F. Kennedy elementary school, which, by comparison, has been reasonably well maintained, perhaps because of its link to a white man. The message is subtle, but clear."

I live in English Avenue, a couple blocks from Kennedy & we shop at the WalMart regularly (closest grocery store). I don't see how John F. Kennedy being white has anything to do with Paschal's not being maintained. The vast majority of the staffs of both Atlanta Public Schools & Clark Atlanta are African American. I assure you, Kennedy, before it was Hollis, before the Stadium, got very little help from anyone. I've been there, I've tutored there, the school really struggled. They have a natatorium that's been closed and unused for years (even though the single thing our neighborhood kids always ask is to go to a pool).

Both of these buildings have their struggles. And certainly Paschal's should have been maintained better. But I think that saying that Paschal's is in ruin because Kennedy Middle School is named after a white man is definitely a stretch, an odd, misleading and unfair comparison.

Why can't the school have been well maintained because it's run by a government funded organization? Why can't Paschal's be in disrepair because of mismanagement or lack of funds or lack of economic viability? Why isn't it Clark Atlanta's fault? Why does it have to be the general fault of white people sending a subtle yet clear message? I think very few of those white people even knew that Kennedy Middle School existed. So, I find the "white man" argument very hard to believe.

You might know that there are lots of abandoned and vacant properties owned by AUC schools. If you drive through, you see. It's pretty sad. Could it be that Paschal's is like those? Maybe Clark lacks the funds to maintain all they have - or with down economy, they had a setback? Perhaps fewer students are wanting to attend a racially segregated university, so revenue is down?

I don't think it has much to do with the name of the middle school up the street, but if you have more thoughts or arguments to support your assertion, I'm absolutely open to correction and education.

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